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What Matters Most

January 27, 2009 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Project Management Best Practices

What Matters Most
By Barry Otterholt

After three or four projects, you learn that there are a few things that must go right for most any project to succeed. These are generally referred to as the Critical Success Factors, or CSFs. Here are a few:

• Ensure strong sponsorship – Someone with money and authority to spend it must want the project. This sponsor must evangelize the value of the project throughout its life. He or she must also be willing to work through trouble spots and make tough choices when an issue goes beyond the project manager’s ability to control it.
• Ensure proper funding - Funding should be sufficient. Seem obvious? Most project managers take whatever is provided and assume it will work, just to find themselves in hot water when the inevitable truth arrives.
• Pick the right team - Typically this is the area where we see the most conspicuous signs of a troubled project. Too often staff are assigned to projects simply because they are available, rather than being the best person for the job. This usually results in disruptive changes to personnel in the middle of the project. Required skills must come to the project sooner or later to get the job done. Sooner is better.
• Do planning - Planning should be on ongoing evaluation and adjustment process, not mere preparation of a deliverable. Adjustments in staff, schedule, and expectations should occur routinely as project circumstances change. This way Sponsors can have a clear understanding of when the project will be done and what it will cost.
• Know the end before you begin – Much waste occurs in projects because people are not sufficiently focused on the outcome. You should define “Done” before you start, so everybody understands what the job is and all work can be directed at getting it done. The military refers to this as “exit criteria”; when these things have been done, we go away.
• Prepare for change – Projects seek a level of change that can’t be attained via normal processes. The organization must be prepared for the change before it hits, so life can continue only slightly shaken.

Attending to these CSFs will have the project on a good footing from the start.

Barry Otterholt, CMC, PMP

Barry Otterholt has been a project management specialist and coach for the past 30 years. He is a Certified Management Consultant (CMC) and a Project Management Professional (PMP). He works with both public and private sector companies in the USA, Europe and Scandinavia. Mr. Otterholt was a Director with Microsoft, a senior consultant with Deloitte Consulting, and a COO with a nationwide consumer electronics enterprise. In 1988 he founded Public Knowledge, LLC to provide independent management and operational support to the public sector. More recently, he founded Stouffer & Company, LLC to provide as-needed project management services to fill an obvious skills gap in both private and public sectors.

Mr. Otterholt is an adjunct professor teaching project management at Northwest University. His essays on project management have been published in PMI newsletters. His runs a blog, Project Management Essays, where he muses about various project management topics.

Mr. Otterholt is a member of the Institute of Management Consultants (IMC) and the Project Management Institute (PMI). He has a BA in Accounting and Computer Science and an MBA in Business Administration. He lives in the beautiful Pacific Northwest.

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